Chapter 10: The Sparring Distraction
The air on the rooftop was a crisp, manufactured cool, humming through discreet vents to ward off the city’s clinging heat. The scent was an artifice of ozone and damp soil, undercut by the peppery sting of venomous night-blooming jasmine. Caius stood in the center of the black marble square, toes curling against the smooth, cold stone. He wore soft, grey training pants and a fitted tank, his arms bare, the clean lines of his physique deceptive in their slimness.
Nino circled him, a study in controlled power. He moved with the easy grace of a predator who’d never known a real challenge in this ring. His smile was a white slash in the gloom, neon from the city below painting his shoulders in bleeding pinks and blues.
“You sure about this, piccolino? You’re looking… breakable today.” Nino’s voice was a warm, teasing rumble.
Caius said nothing. He offered a small, placid smile and settled into a basic stance—knees slightly bent, hands up, a picture of amateur readiness. It was an invitation.
Nino took it. He closed the distance, not with a strike, but to grab, to control. Always the Alpha. His large hand shot out to clasp Caius’s forearm.
Caius didn’t pull away. He flowed into the motion, letting Nino’s strength guide him, adding his own momentum. He pivoted, his body a sudden, supple lever, and used Nino’s grip to torque the Alpha’s arm just beyond its comfortable axis. It wasn’t enough to hurt, just enough to make him grunt in surprise and release his hold.
Caius slipped free, dance-stepping back two paces. His expression remained serene.
Nino paused, reassessing. The playfulness in his eyes sharpened into genuine interest. “Okay. Noted.”
This time, he came in with a testing jab. Caius parried it, his forearm meeting Nino’s with a smart smack that echoed off the glass conservatories. The impact vibrated up Caius’s bone. He didn’t react to the pain, channeling it into his next movement—a low, sweeping kick aimed at Nino’s ankle.
Nino avoided it, but just barely. He was faster than he looked, a truth Caius already knew. “Getting spicy,” Nino chuckled, but the chuckle was tighter now.
They moved in a slow, gathering rhythm. Block, strike, deflect. Caius was a ghost, always there to receive the blow, never there to absorb its full force. He left openings—deliberate, tantalizing gaps in his defense. A hesitation after a high block that exposed his ribs for a half-second. A recovery from a slip that was a beat too slow.
Nino took the bait for the ribs, driving a fist forward. Caius sucked in his stomach, letting the knuckles graze the fabric of his tank, then trapped the arm against his side, his own hand snaking up to press two fingers gently against the pulse point in Nino’s wrist. A touch, not a strike. A reminder of a vulnerability.
He released immediately, spinning away before Nino could lock him down.
“You’re leaving yourself open,” Nino said, breathing a little harder. It was an observation laced with mild suspicion.
“Am I?” Caius asked, his voice light. He darted in, a flurry of soft, open-palm strikes—shoulder, bicep, chest—each a stinging tap, a provocation. They were the blows of someone who knew how to hit but was pulling all his power. They demanded attention, reaction, engagement. They were perfectly distracting.
Nino obliged, his world narrowing to the beautiful, elusive figure in front of him. He stopped talking, his focus absolute. He began to press, his combinations becoming more complex, his footwork more assertive. The spar was turning real.
Caius gave ground, leading Nino in a circle around the blood-red fountain. His mind split, a feat of chilling compartmentalization. One part was here, reading the micro-tensions in Nino’s shoulders, the shift of his weight, the patterns of his breath. This part calculated distance, angle, and a hundred different ways to disarm, disable, or kill the Alpha with the objects within reach—the edge of the marble bench, the iron trellis, the shears left by the gardener.
The other part of his mind was with Sera, three floors below in the security suite. She would be there now, under the guise of a routine systems audit. She’d be adjusting the response protocols for the Atrium Gala, creating the "margins" he’d spoken of. She’d be subtly re-routing camera loops, creating blind spots exactly where Marcus would need them, scheduling guard rotations that would leave the family lounge accessible at a precise, vulnerable window. All embedded within Nino’s own, heavier security blanket.
A hard jab popped Caius’s head back. His teeth clicked together. A warm trickle of copper bloomed inside his lip. The taste was familiar, metallic and focusing.
Nino froze, his eyes wide with instant regret. “Shit, Caius, I—”
Caius wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, looked at the faint smudge of red, and smiled. It was a real one, startling in its warmth. “Don’t stop.”
He surged forward, abandoning all pretense of defense. It was a whirlwind of controlled aggression—not the killing kind, but the demanding, overwhelming kind. He used his speed, his lower center of gravity, the element of surprise. He became a hive of sensation: a sharp knuckle to a pressure point on Nino’s thigh that made his leg buckle; a palm-heel to the chest that drove the air from his lungs with a whumpf; a foot hooked behind Nino’s knee.
Nino went down, catching himself on one hand, a laugh of pure astonishment bursting from him. He looked up from the marble floor, his hair falling into his eyes. “Where the hell did you learn that?”
Caius stood over him, chest rising and falling evenly. He extended a hand. “Aerobics class. Tuesdays and Thursdays.” The lie was delivered with deadpan perfection.
Nino took the hand, and Caius hauled him up with a strength that made Nino’s eyebrows lift higher. They were close now, breathing the same charged air. Nino’s gaze searched his face, the curiosity molten now, bleeding into something hotter.
“You’re full of surprises, you know that?”
“I try to be.” Caius kept his tone light, but he held the gaze. He saw the protective instinct warring with burgeoning respect, the suspicion melting under the heat of physical revelation. This was the distraction, perfected. Nino was here, with him, in this moment. Not downstairs. Not questioning Sera.
From below, a faint, almost imperceptible vibration thrummed through the marble. The elevator, arriving at the penthouse level. Sera’s work was done.
Caius let his posture soften, the fighter evaporating. He leaned into Nino, resting his forehead against the Alpha’s shoulder, a sudden, exhausted gesture. “I think you bruised my ribs,” he murmured, the playful victim once more.
The shift worked. Nino’s arms came around him, the concern immediate and encompassing. “Let me see. I got carried away. God, I’m an idiot.”
“Just a little,” Caius agreed, his voice muffled against Nino’s shirt. He let himself be held, feeling the steady, strong heartbeat against his cheek. He closed his eyes.
In the stillness, with the city a silent, glowing witness below, he mapped the final phase. The gala. The three ghosts from his past. The theater of blood he was building with Serafina Rossi’s pragmatic complicity.
He saw the moment Anja would slip into the quiet lounge, expecting a terrified rabbit. He saw Marcus, so pleased with the predictable chaos he’d engineered, never sensing the trap within the trap. He saw Kaito on his chosen perch, watching the wrong stage.
Nino’s hand, large and warm, stroked his back. “You’re trembling.”
Caius wasn’t. It was a stillness so deep it mirrored vibration. He made a soft, agreeable sound anyway, a perfect counterfeit of spent adrenaline.
“Come on,” Nino said, his voice full of tender authority. “Let’s get you inside. I’ll find some ice.”
As Nino led him away from the sparring square, Caius cast one final look over his shoulder. The rooftop was empty, pristine. The fountain’s red water was perfectly still, reflecting nothing but the indifferent neon sky. A stage, cleared and waiting.
He turned back, leaning into Nino’s side, and let the door to the razor-sharp garden sigh shut behind them.
The penthouse air was a shock of sterile warmth after the rooftop's artificial chill. Nino's arm stayed around him, a solid, unyielding weight that felt less like a restraint and more like an anchor in a sea Caius hadn't realized was churning. His ribs ached where a genuine, un-pulled punch had landed. The pain was a clean, bright thing. Honest.
"Kitchen," Nino said, his voice still edged with that thrilled, bewildered respect. "Ice. Now."
Caius let himself be steered. The open living space sprawled before them, all sharp angles and muted tones, a testament to a dead man's cold taste. Nino hadn't changed it much. He deposited Caius on a stool at the massive granite island, his hands firm on Caius's shoulders. "Sit. Don't move."
He turned to the freezer, a study in focused concern. Caius watched the broad line of his back, the way his shirt stretched across his shoulders, damp with sweat from their session. A faint tremor, minute and unwilled, traveled up Caius’s own spine. It wasn't fear. It was the aftermath of the performance, the careful duality of fighting while simultaneously planning a triple homicide in his head. And part of it, a traitorous part, was the way Nino was moving now—the efficiency of his search for the gel pack, the slight curse under his breath when he couldn't immediately find it.
"Here," Nino said, turning. He had the pack wrapped in a clean dish towel. He came close, too close, filling Caius's field of vision. He didn't hand it over. "Where did I get you?"
Caius lifted the hem of his tank, exposing the pale skin over his left side. A redness was already blooming, a canvas of superficial capillaries broken by force. It would be a spectacular bruise by morning. Nino's breath hissed in softly through his teeth.
"Christ, Caius." The words were almost a whisper. He pressed the wrapped ice gently against the injury, his other hand coming up to steady Caius's hip. The cold was a shock, then a numbness. The warmth of Nino's hand on his bare skin was a deeper, more confusing sensation.
"It's fine," Caius said, and his voice sounded normal to his own ears. Flat. Serviceable. "You were supposed to hit me. That's the point."
"The point was to train, not to mark you up." Nino's thumb stroked a tiny, absent arc just above the waistband of Caius’s pants. He was studying the bruise, his expression clouded. "You're actually really good. Where did that come from?"
The lie was ready. Self-defense classes. YouTube tutorials. Something pathetic and plausible. Caius opened his mouth to deliver it, but the words jammed in his throat. He looked at Nino's face, the furrow between his brows, the genuine confusion mixed with a dawning, uncomfortable awe. This man, who could order a kneecapping without blinking, was worried about a bruise. He’d seen Caius dismantle his balance with clinical ease, and his first instinct was still to fetch ice.
A strange, hollow feeling opened up behind Caius’s sternum. It wasn't anxiety. It was worse.
"A long time ago," Caius heard himself say. The truth, vague and dangerous, hung in the air between them.
Nino's eyes lifted from the bruise to meet his. The questions were right there, palpable. But he didn't ask them. He just held the ice, his gaze searching Caius's face as if the answers were written in a language he was only beginning to decipher. The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable, but Nino didn't push. He just… stayed.
And Caius, the product of a thousand debriefings and psychological evaluations, the weapon forged in cold rooms, felt something terrifying. He felt seen. Not his function, not his pretty Omega facade, but the dangerous, competent truth of him. And Nino hadn't flinched. He’d gotten excited.
"Does that happen often?" Nino asked finally, his voice low. "You just… zone out like that? You did it up on the roof, right in the middle of everything. Like you were here, but also somewhere else completely."
The observation was lethally accurate. Caius’s internal systems sparked a warning. His smile felt brittle. "Just thinking."
"About what?"
"About whether you had any of those lemon tarts left from breakfast." The deflection was weak, almost childish.
Nino’s laugh was a short, surprised puff of air. He shook his head, the tension breaking. "Unbelievable. I'm having a crisis of conscience over here, and you're thinking about pastries." He adjusted the ice pack, his fingers brushing the spot again. "Yeah, there's one left. I saved it for you."
He said it so simply. I saved it for you. A tiny, domestic treason against the chef’s planned menu. A small, deliberate act of consideration. Caius had survived torture regimens, had navigated psychological warfare, had faked his own death with impeccable precision. This, somehow, was the thing that threatened to unravel him.
Nino fetched the tart, a perfect, sun-yellow confection on a small china plate. He placed it on the granite beside Caius’s free hand. "Eat. You need sugar after that."
Caius picked it up. The pastry was flaky, the curd sharp and sweet. It was delicious. He ate it slowly, under Nino’s watchful gaze, the ice numbing his side, the warmth of that stabilizing hand on his hip a constant, low-grade burn.
He thought of the plan. Of the Atrium. Of the three ghosts he and Sera were weaving into a tomb. The work was clean, logical, a necessary excision of a cancerous threat. It was what he was made for.
Then he looked at Nino, who was now wiping a smudge of powdered sugar from the corner of Caius’s mouth with his thumb, his eyes soft. This man, who ruled with bloodstained authority, was looking at him like he was something precious. Not fragile. Precious.
The logical voice in his head, the one that sounded like his old handlers, screamed. It listed the reasons: this was a contract, Nino was a criminal kingpin, love was a liability, affection was a weapon turned inward. It was all true. It was all absolute, indisputable fact.
And yet.
As Nino leaned in, drawn by some magnetic pull Caius couldn’t resist or falsify, Caius didn't calculate the angle of the approach or the vulnerability of his own exposed throat. He just closed his eyes. The kiss tasted like lemon and copper and something devastatingly, irrevocably new. It wasn't a strategy. It was a surrender to a feeling he had no name for, a current pulling him under despite every sane instinct screaming to fight it.
He was falling, and there was no protocol for this.
The kiss deepened, losing its tentative exploration and hardening into something hungry and definitive. Nino’s hands came up to frame his face, calloused thumbs stroking his jawline, and for a breathtaking moment Caius let himself drown in it. The world dissolved into the heat of Nino’s mouth, the solid press of his body, the faint, clean scent of soap and sweat cutting through the sugar and iron. It was an anchor. It was a lifeline thrown into a storm he hadn’t admitted he was in.
Then the Handler’s voice, cold and procedural, sliced through the warmth in his mind. Asset distraction leads to mission failure. Attachment is a critical vulnerability. He saw Marcus setting the charge. He saw Anja’s scalpel. He saw Kaito’s crosshair settling not on him, but on the broad back of the man currently kissing him senseless.
Caius tore his mouth away, turning his head aside with a gasping breath that felt like a sob. He took a physical step back, his bare heels hitting the cold cabinet behind him. “I… I can’t.” The words scraped out of him, raw and awful.
Nino stared, his lips kiss-swollen, his expression clouded with a confusion that was quickly igniting into something darker. “Can’t what?”
“We have a mission.” Caius’s voice was tight, a rehearsed line delivered badly. He couldn’t look at him. He focused on the granite vein in the countertop, grey and relentless. “The gala. The threat. I can’t get distracted now, not when your safety is in the balance.”
The silence that followed was a tangible weight. He felt the lie of it, the half-truth, curdle in the air between them. His heart was a frantic, squeezing knot of remorse—a guilt so sharp it was nauseating. He wanted this so badly it was a physical ache. He wanted to fall back into those arms and finally feel free to voice his wants, to feel loved, and wanted, and cared for without the specter of a kill-list hanging over them. But he would become distracted. All his thoughts would be on Nino—his warmth, his safety, the exact cadence of his breath—and the ice in his own veins, the only thing that would keep them both alive, would melt.
He made to move, to sidestep away from the island, from the unbearable tension.
A hand, firm but gentle, came from behind and gripped his neck. Not painfully, but with utter, unshakable possession. The touch seared through him. Then a low growl vibrated against his back, Nino’s chest pressing close. “Do not walk away from me, Coltellino.”
The use of the nickname—little knife—sent a shockwave through him. It was a reminder, a reclamation.
“Not unless you want me to strap you naked to the bed,” Nino murmured, his breath hot against Caius’s ear, “and spend the rest of the day reminding you.” He punctuated the next words with little, sharp nips on Caius’s earlobe. “That. You. Are. Mine.”
Each word was a pulse of heat, a promise of delicious, consuming oblivion. It was a threat that thawed the ice in his core and flooded him with a terrifying, welcome heat. His traitorous body relaxed into the hold, his head tipping slightly to grant better access, a silent surrender that betrayed every calculated protest. The mission, the Thorn Circle, the entire precariously balanced world he’d built, shimmered and threatened to dissolve into the sensation of teeth on his skin and that voice in his ear.